How to Shorten Design Cycle Times of Complex Materials

Industrial designers struggle to get an accurate representation of how a new color will look on their final product, especially with complex materials and finishes. Creating a virtual rendering is a cost-effective and sustainable way to perform meaningful reviews and get stakeholder feedback before production even begins.

Challenges

When presenting new colors on their concepts or products, industrial designers must bridge the gap between design expectations and the manufacturing process.

Solution

Instead of fabricating prototypes to demonstrate how the material will appear on the final product, industrial designers can use the PANTORA desktop application to create a physically accurate virtual representation. This enables designers, product managers, engineers, manufacturers and other key stakeholders to visualize the color, sparkle, and surface texture of all types of complex samples, and simulate how color, appearance and other special attributes can be visualized on 3-dimensional objects and forms under different lighting conditions.

Powered by X-Rite’s AxF format, this representation can be visualized within PANTORA as well as imported into third-party visualization and simulation tools for use in a range of industries, including durable goods, home goods, and consumer packaged goods.

Results

Creating a virtual rendering that goes beyond color to capture full material appearance is a fast, easy, and economical way to gain stakeholder buy-in.

How it Works

  1. The designer uses the MA-T12 to measure the coatings, leather or plastic textured sample. With the multi-angle measurement, it fully characterizes both color and special attributes like sparkle, coarseness or other texture characteristics.
  2. PANTORA locates, acquires, and imports digital materials as AxF files, applies the material to arbitrary geometry, and renders it in real-time in a virtual scene for an immersive digital material evaluation experience.
  3. The designer can send the digital rendering to engineers, production managers, supply chain partners, and other stakeholders for review and approval through a third-party rendering solution or PLM system.
  4. These digital materials can be stored, managed, viewed, and edited in AxF from a centralized location for future recipes and to create marketing materials.

 Featured Products

PANTORA

PANTORA

A desktop application designed to simplify the management of a large volume of complex color and appearance data. It acts as the epicenter of appearance workflows, connecting digital material input sources with output designations such as third-party rendering software and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Systems.

 

MA-T 12

With twelve angles of measurement and an on-board color calibrated RGB camera, the advanced MA-T12 multi-angle spectrophotometer can fully characterize and verify color, sparkle, coarseness and texture characteristics with the highest level of repeatability and reproducibility.

 

Other Software

Third Party Rendering Software

Renderings made using PANTORA can be viewed by brands and designers using AxF-enabled rendering software solutions. Visit our website for the most current list of vendors: https://www.xrite.com/axf.

 

Conclusion

PANTORA can help automotive, consumer electronics, and other manufacturers visualize the color and appearance of their samples to present more options at the design phase and speed approvals. Learn more at https://www.xrite.com/pantora-software.